Power adapter market to grow by USD 2bn

Editor: Staff Editor

The market for power adapters and chargers is set to grow by $2 billion from 2012 to 2017, driven by new applications like tablets that will counteract a decline in cellphone charging, according to IMS Research, now part of IHS (NYSE: IHS).

“While shipments of cellphone chargers are forecast to drop off, the adoption of emerging applications such as tablets, wireless power and charging, and light-emitting diode (LED) lighting is predicted to occur rapidly and drive growth, offsetting the loss in the cellphone segment,” said Jonathan Eykyn, analyst for power management & conversion research at IHS.

The anticipated contraction of chargers in the cellphone market is due to the use of the wired universal charging solution (UCS), an incentive driven by the GSMA organization of mobile operators and related companies, in order to reduce electronics waste by using a universal adapter for all cellphones and by eventually removing the bundled charger from the box. As the cellphone market is by far the dominant sector in the power adapter and charger space, a decline in shipments here will have a large impact on the overall market.

Given the reduced number of cellphone chargers that will be shipped, the power adapter and charger market is projected to decline in 2014 and 2015, in line with earlier IMS projections showing a steep falloff in 2014. However, stronger annual growth for the market will return.by 2016, spurred by increasing demand from the new applications. Without the growth of the wireless power and LED lighting markets, the power adapter and charger market would have started to contract in 2016, ending up approximately $1.4 billion less in 2017.

“The prospect of their traditional markets declining was of grave concern to many power adapter and charger manufacturers,” Eykyn noted. “Luckily, the adoption of new applications will provide these players with ever-greater opportunities.”

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